Geothermal power plants generally utilize a steam turbine receiving steam from a geothermal well. The well conditions in geothermal applications or projects are variable and are often unknown at the time that a steam turbine is being designed for the project. In particular, current design practice often requires that final well conditions be determined prior to completing the design, with a resulting delay between the time that the final well conditions are obtained and the time that the turbine is installed, requiring the additional steps of finalizing the design and completing construction of the turbine prior to shipping it to the site for installation.
Accordingly, during the design process for a conventional geothermal project there exists the possibility that the resource conditions will change from the time that the turbine design is finalized to the time that it is placed in operation. Furthermore, the well conditions may vary over time, such that the thermodynamic efficiency of the turbine may decrease over the life of the geothermal power plant as the steam conditions vary from those of the steam turbine design point. Such changes may particularly affect the thermodynamic efficiency of first one to four stages of the steam turbine, and may substantially increase the energy costs as the efficiency of these stages is no longer optimized.